Misaki Kawai & Justin Waldron, workshop at HARCOZA


New Tokyo Contemporaries: The City as Gallery

While the global art communities continue to brave hard times, an art month in Tokyo conceived by a seven-gallery collective recently managed to combine art and commerce through public spaces.

Galleries unite their geography to take Art all-city

Three years ago seven second-generation galleries, Aoyama|Meguro, Arataniurano, Zenshi, Take Ninagawa, Misako & Rosen, Mujin-to Production and Yuka Sasahara Gallery came together and conceived New Tokyo Contemporaries (NTC)- a city-wide art exhibition aiming to further integrate art within urban life while working towards increasing opportunities and interest in the exhibition and appreciation of contemporary art in Tokyo. For that, to move past a too inward looking art scene, NTC has mixed with Tokyo's commercial community.

A mature environment for contemporary art is needed

Despite the size of Tokyo's population of around 12 million, the city has a strikingly low per capita of exhibitors, collectors and exhibition-goers. As a way to help stimulate activity and discussion in the Tokyo art scene, Atsuko Ninagawa of Take Ninagawa commented, "I was interested in working with other galleries because I was very discouraged by the state of Japan's contemporary art scene, where the market is quite weak and there is little meaningful interaction between galleries, artists, institutions and critics. I believe that a mature environment for contemporary art production can develop only through the independent vitality of those different groups. If we, the young galleries, collaborate together, we can reach a wider audience and have a greater impact." And Hideki Aoyama of Aoyama|Meguro added, "The Tokyo population is large but the percentage of art fans is low. The visibility of art in the public sphere is the problem. If art were shown, business and art would intermix naturally. There are many ways to show art; we just have to be more open minded and active.”

Access to public space as sponsorship

While Tokyo shares its busy art calendar with other high profile shows such as the next Yokohama Triennale in 2011 or the Mori Museum curated Roppongi Crossing, New Tokyo Contemporaries is more of an exhibition practice in free form. The curator collective sidestepped typical booths of art fairs and conceived an exhibition project which adapted to public spaces. While noting the working partnerships involved, the real sponsorship NTC receives is space, or access to public space.

Art in unexpected places, at a Tokyo nexus of commerce

Farther reaching than before, the organizers added the Nikkei newspaper company building to the list of places such as lobbies and boutiques and the gallery themselves held exhibits, parties and presentations. Another iconic locale was Shin Marunouchi, a 38-story office building with an atrium-like lobby and about 150 retailers that is more of a city-in-a-city and a towering public space at the nexus of commerce. Hideki Aoyama of Aoyama | Meguro recalled the setting: “You don’t really expect people to go there for art, so it was a mix of not only art-goers but office workers on the way to their work place.“ While the Shin Marunouchi Building was a quintessential display of New Tokyo Contemporaries in practice, smaller cases dotted the metropolis. Concurrently, each of the seven galleries presented special collaborations with members of the culture, fashion, design and music community of Tokyo.

Collaborations between art and design

For example, Atsuko Ninagawa of Take Ninagawa Gallery collaborated with the recently-opened, niche accessory boutique, Harcoza. "I wanted designer Haruko Okano work with crafter Misaki Kawai on making custom t-shirts for the project. As part of NTC, they also did a t-shirt making workshop at the Harcoza shop, which got a really great turn out," she explained. Aoyama|Meguro displayed the works of Austrian artist Lotte Lyon within the quaint men's boutique 1LDK. And Misako Rosen discussed her gallery's collaboration: "Maya Hewitt made paintings in response to the jewellery design of Yoshiyo Abe of the Petite Robe Noire brand. Yoshiyo Abe then paired these paintings with her designs to create an edition of jewellery and art.

Creating diversity in the scene by engaging all

New Tokyo Contemporaries was not so much a nod towards the diversity of artists or works, but also a diversity of viewers. Rather than solely engage art collectors, NTC caught the attention of a general public. For Atsuko Ninagawa of Take Ninagawa, "NTC has helped to bring a lot of new visitors to my gallery. Actually, a lot of office lady-types came by and asked to learn more about what galleries do. At the same time, it was great to see our artists' works together in the same exhibition space and see the artists talking with each other at the opening events. That kind of thing actually doesn't happen so much here, so the model serves as a great vehicle for not just the gallery owners to interact, but also the artists and the individual galleries' audiences. We have also discussed doing other events and will see what happens in the future."

Vicente Gutierrez is a Tokyo-based journalist working on a documentary on the history of avant-garde & noise music in Japan.

© Aoyama | Meguro


New Tokyo Contemporaries